


Dust Behind the Door

by Lomedet



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2795153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomedet/pseuds/Lomedet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby goes looking for a childhood memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust Behind the Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taelle/gifts).



> Taelle, thank you for the prompt! It was such a joy to get to hang out with these characters for a while. I hope you like your story. 
> 
> Takes place after _The Winter Long_ (Toby Daye Book 8).

My mother's cottage looked pretty much the same as always. The garden was perhaps a bit more overgrown, and the building itself seemed...empty, I guess. I didn't know where my mother was, and it looked like her house didn't either. I veered away from that train of thought and grabbed Tybalt's hand - this time, at least, we weren't here about Mom.

I put my hand on the door and was reassured by the lack of resistance I felt. For a few years after I'd left, the house had held a grudge. Now, maybe because I was older, or because I was less human, I felt more of a welcome home than I had even when I'd lived here. I shrugged of that thought, too, and pulled my fiance inside with me.

"Why are we here, again?" he asked. 

"You were there for that conversation," I said. "April wanted to know more about faerie childhood, since hers was a little...unconventional. There's something in my old room I think could help." I deliberately didn't specify what it was - partly out of a desire to tug Tybalt's tail a bit, and partly because I wasn't sure if I wanted it to still be there or not. 

"Ah," he said. "October, never would I want you to think me a coward, but something about your mother's home makes me nervous." 

I looked at him and grinned, "Darling," I put an affected drawl in my voice, "That's only because you haven't observed the proper forms and asked her for my hand, and you think the house can tell."

He looked affronted. "But she's not here to ask..." he began, and then cut himself off as we arrived at my old room.

"This is...not what I expected," he admitted, stepping inside and taking in the four-poster bed, the roses decorating everything, and the orderly shelves full of books and toys. "I will admit to imagining something a bit more...Gothic."

I laughed a little. "Luna was responsible for the roses, of course. And other than that - I was trying to be what I thought everyone wanted." It was true, and when trying so hard had gotten to be too much, I had run to Devin. But I wasn't going to think about that, either.

I scanned the shelves, looking for the familiar leather binding. It was there, just where I'd left it. I reached up and pulled down the old book. I opened it to the first page, looking at the illustration of the impossibly beautiful woman with the long pale hair and wishing with all my heart that I could believe it was a picture of someone other than Mom. 

Knowing what I now knew about the family history, it was hard for me to believe the book was as innocent a gift as I'd taken it for, back when I was a child desperate for acceptance and love. I wasn't going to let those memories taint the stories themselves for me, though - stories about changeling heroes, children coming from the edge of the faerie world who changed things for the better, who helped and aided and brought new and important gifts to faerie although never, now that I thought about it, came to rule or to power in their own right.

Tybalt's arm came around my shoulders, and I let him hold me for a moment, basking in the scents of pennyroyal and musk. Then I straightened up. "Come on," I said, "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

"Popsicle stand? October, I will never cease to be amazed at your lack of poetic sensibility." Tybalt continued to gently tease me as we walked back out through my mother's house, his words serving to distract me from the grey mood that I had seemed to pick up along with the book. We stepped out the front door and stopped.

Sylvester Torquill was standing in the garden.

"What are you doing here?" Holding the book he used to read to me, that had been the first gift I had received on my arrival in Shadowed Hills, I couldn't make my voice as cold as I wanted to. 

He saw what I was holding, and I'd like to believe he flinched. "Hello, Toby. Tybalt." The King of the Cait Sidhe was tense at my side, but I knew he wouldn't engage directly with Sylvester unless things somehow got truly out of my control. Given recent history, this was not as unlikely an event as I might have liked. 

"What are you doing here, Sylvester?" This time, I kept my voice steady, and managed to keep it neutral. He sighed. "October. I have known your mother for a very long time, and I miss her. Especially now. I thought coming to walk in her garden would bring me a little comfort."

I wouldn't let myself be moved by the genuine pain in his voice. I wouldn't. "Sylvester..." I began, and then stopped. Unable to find the words for how much his refusal to tell me the truth hurt me. Unable to find any compassion for how much I could see that refusal was hurting him.

My fingers squeezed the book, pressing indents into the leather. I thought a moment, and then held it out to him. "This belongs to your family, I suppose. I was going to give to to your grand-niece, but perhaps you would like to claim that privilege?"

He shook his head. "Toby, no. That book is yours. It was written for the children of your family, not mine." He paused a moment, and then contined, wryly, "Although I'm sure April would love to get her hands on it long enough to upload a copy to her servers, if you felt like being generous."

"Written for the children of my family? By whom? Is that more of the story that I"m not allowed to know?" My voice was sharp with bitterness. Tybalt tightened his hand around mine, preparing, I could tell, to suggest in the strongest words that we should leave. I squeezed back and tugged gently downward - we were into it now, and I wanted to see how this would play out. Also, a tiny, very young part of me wanted to throw myself at Sylvester and be caught up in one of his pennyroyal and daffodil scented hugs. I squashed that part down.

He sighed. "Yes. I wish I could tell you, but it's not mine to tell."

"But you could read it to me? How was that okay?" I was embarrassed by the way my voice broke, just a bit, on the last word.

"Oh, child." Suddenly, Sylvester looked old in a way that had nothing to do with the gray hair or wrinkles that he didn't have. He looked tired, and bruised of heart, and not at all like the man who had been my main source of stability after everything in my life changed under my feet. "I read to you because I couldn't not. And because those stories were the best tools I could give you for surviving in this world you'd been forced to choose."

"That you forced me to choose," I said, but there was no sting in my words. 

"That I forced you to chose," he acknowledged. 

"But _why_?" I couldn't help asking, even though I knew what the answer or, rather, the non-answer would be.

Sylvester surprised me by smiling. "Because, my dear, the alternative was to lose you completely, and that would have been too great a loss for any of us to bear."

I didn't realize my jaw had dropped until I felt Tybalt's hand gently pressing my chin up. "Sylvester, what...?" I sputtered.

He came closer. I realized only belatedly how carefully he'd been keeping his distance. He stopped just beyond my reach and held out his hand. "May I?" he asked.

I handed him the book. He took it and ran his hands over the cover, and then he opened it to the picture of the woman with the long, pale hair. Emotions flickered over his face too fast for me to catch, but then he looked at me with all of the love and care I'd known as a girl. He gestured to one of the low benches scattered about the overgrown garden. "I know it won't solve any of the current difficulties in our relationship but, Toby, it would give me great pleasure to read to you again." 

It was almost the last thing I had expected him to say. I stood frozen in place as he walked toward the closest bench and sat down, leafing through the book and seeming to pay no attention to me. I turned to Tybalt, who had been remarkably quiet for this whole interaction. "Do you think...?" I began, but then stopped when my arms were suddenly full of purring cat. He reached up to rub his cheek against mine, and then jumped down and walked to where Sylvester was sitting. He casually sat down on the opposite end of the bench, and then pointedly looked at the space he'd made between them. "Well, I guess that answers _that_ question," I let out a slightly hysterical laugh, and then I took a deep breath and joined them.

I saw that Sylvester had opened the book to the story that had always been my favorite, and without conscious thought I found myself leaning against his arm, waiting to hear him make the words come alive. Cautiously, his arm came around me, and he began:

"Long ago, in a time lost in the mists, a girl was born into two different worlds at the same time..."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dust Behind the Door [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4000609) by [the_dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl)




End file.
